Life's Musings and Everything Else
by painted.inkblot
Summary: Or rather, Anthony Goldstein during and after the war, in fifty oneshots. Title subject to change.
1. Midnight

This fic is for the 50 Art of Words challenge, which is a series of 50 word prompts (so there will be fifty chapters), with 5 different series to choose from. I chose the Table 2 series, and the character I'm writing about is Anthony Goldstein of Ravenclaw. Some of it may not entirely interview compliant (for example, having Professor McGonagall headmistress of Hogwarts after the Deathly Hallows even though JK Rowling said she retired and did not take the position), but most of it will be. I've got ten oneshots, including this one, finished, so those will be up today and the next nine days, one for each day. Obviously.

Disclaimer for the whole fic: I do not own Harry Potter and am not JK Rowling in any way, shape, or form, though this is all obvious.

_Midnight_

Anthony has always known there's something infinite, something _special_, about midnight. It's the kind of time, kind of place that's truly magical, even though such an adjective isn't that special for someone who's a wizard. Maybe it's the silence and total darkness, except for the tiny dot stars and, sometimes, the moon. Either way, everything about midnight seems special to Anthony, from the silence that, instead of being cold, is as peaceful as you can get, from the way it seems to pulse, as if it's _alive, _to a dark with pinpricks of light that is as fine as what you find in an art museum.

Midnight, Anthony decided a while ago, was a good confidante. So that was why he was sitting on his doorstep at midnight wearing nothing but worn, dark trousers and a ragged blue jumper with holes at the elbows.

His knees were pulled up to his chest, his chin perched on his hands, which were laid on his knees. The midnight sky he was staring at seemed to go on forever and ever, and the black gave a sort of depth that you didn't see anywhere else. Darker than usual (_To go with the mood of the wizarding world_, Anthony thought), it was a new moon, and the light was only given by stars. Anthony hadn't decided to look for them much that night, as it was a curious trait of stars that you could only see them if you outright looked for them, so they seemed to have been scattered particularly sparsely among the sky that night.

The words felt immature before he even spoke them. Anthony Goldstein was a halfblood, so he guessed it wasn't that strange that he, unlike many witches and wizards, had a religion, but after living Hogwarts as if it was his second home since he was eleven, the word "God" nearly tasted unfamiliar on his mouth, like when you greet an old friend whose name once slipped off your mouth as easily as your mother's.

"Do you care about the wizarding world, God?" Anthony asked, staring up into the midnight sky. Though it had no eyes (well, perhaps the stars, millions of bright eyes), it gazed back at him. "I mean, most of them aren't really religious, unless you count celebrating Easter and Christmas. But a war's beginning in the wizarding world, God. I don't know if you noticed, but all hell's freezing over." Sighing, Anthony picked up an edition of the _Daily Prophet_ with one hand, waving it above his head. "This newspaper's announced that Severus Snape is the new headmaster of Hogwarts, God. Most say he's on You-Know-Who's side. Albus Dumbledore died, you know. They say he was the only one You-Know-Who ever feared, and if he's dead..." Anthony trailed off. If the midnight sky could speak, it would probably trying to calm him down.

Anthony stood up, the _Prophet _slipping from his hands and floating down onto his doorstep. "I don't think you heard me, God, and I'm not entirely sure if you care. But I needed to let it out, and I needed the midnight. Words aren't really doing anything for me right now, you know?"

He didn't receive an answer, but the continuous glimmering of the stars seemed to Anthony as if he was being acknowledged, at least. Glancing at his house, he saw two candles standing out in the darkness by the window; candles that had been lit for Shabbat. Something nice and normal. Anthony had a feeling he wouldn't be feeling nice and normal for a while.

He plopped down onto his cold doorstep again, the chilly gravel feeling good on his hands. Moving down a step, he sat down on the ground and leaned against the first step, continuing to let his eyes wander around the blue and black paint that had been painted above, dotted with white.

A gangly seventeen year old boy could be seen stretched out, sleeping, right in front of the doorstep of a house. If his eyes were open, they would have pointed straight up to the midnight sky.


	2. Burn

_Burn_

"Candles?" Anthony said, his brow furrowed.

His new friend Terry Boot leaned over, glancing at the waxy candles Anthony had laid down on his hands, just unwrapped along with shiny candleholders. He scratched his dark, curly head of hair and shrugged. "I dunno. Decoration?"

Terry may not have known, but Anthony did know why his mum had sent him candles, and at that point he rather wished his mum wasn't a muggle, and then she'd know that wizards and witches weren't actually religious, and not Jewish at that. Maybe it was his dad's fault, becoming one of the very few Jewish wizards in England and not ever really mentioning to Mum that the wizarding world was rather secular.

"Shabbat," Anthony muttered, a trace of bitterness in his voice. "She's expecting me to celebrate Shabbat in Hogwarts, and of course I need to light the candles, as that's more important than challah or anything."

"Oh, you're Jewish? I hadn't met any wizards yet who were religious." Pausing, Terry eyed the candles again and added, "I'm Christian."

Anthony nodded, not really listening to Terry but going through the motions. "How does she expect me to light them?" he demanded. "We're only in our first week of school, I'm positive there're no matches in a place like this, and I heard we don't learn how to make fire until later in the year."

"I saw this bushy haired Gryffindor girl practicing it in the library yesterday," Terry said. "It's 'incendio.' She got it right, but she almost burned something and Madame Pince lectured her for ten minutes straight."

"Incendio," Anthony murmured. "Right."

--

"And _how_ did you burn your fingers so badly?" Madam Pomfrey asked, Anthony Goldstein's hand in her aged one. The fingertips looked far from healthy in comparison to the fingers of Anthony's left hand.

"I was trying to do Incendio," Anthony muttered, his right hand taut with pain. "I did it, but my wand fell out of my hand onto my other one, and nearly got onto my leg."

Madam Pomfrey sighed. "There's a reason you're not taught it this early on in the year," she said, making tutting sounds. "Why were you even trying to, anyway? To get ahead?"

Anthony muttered something incomprehensible.

From farther back in the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey, probably looking for the potion to remedy the pain, replied, "I'll take that was as 'no, but I don't want to tell so you can just go with that if you want.'"

Madam Pomfrey, Anthony decided, must have become very sharp from healing so many students. Besides, she probably had never heard of Shabbat, anyway.

Anthony stared at his fingers, a bit surprised that Madam Pomfrey hadn't asked why or how it had fell out of his hand, or if that was the truth. He shuddered at the memory. Who would invent a spell like that?

--

_Fire. Anthony hadn't ever really been scared of it, though he had always grimaced at the idea of getting burnt from it. But had it ever had this hypnotizing quality? Anthony stared at the fire on the tip of his wand, waving from side to side, a sharp, bright yellow color that hurt his eyes, yet he couldn't tear them away from it..._

_"Anthony?" The shove in the shoulders from Terry didn't jolt him into consciousness, and the wand stayed firmly gripped in his hands._

_Swaying, bright, burning, yellow – beautiful? Certainly not deadly, it was too...too...something to be deadly, to really burn. Right? Right?_

_His mouth open, Anthony lifted his right hand; he needed to touch this beautiful, otherworldly _thing_ (though it could deserve the title of "being," in Anthony's opinion). He grasped it, slid his fingers under the dancing flames (he momentarily wondered if the flames danced to a particular beat or song, though it had no feet, not that that mattered) – and screamed, his tone a sharp dagger that had deadly precision. _

_Fire – shouldn't – hurt – that – much...It was too beautiful! Too lovely, too innocent (or was the innocence a mask?)..._

_Anthony's dad had touched fire once, he remembered, but he had only winced and then swore, not screamed._

_Too hot. Too burning. Too searing, scorching, scalding. It traveled its way into his hands, though stayed on the wand, crackling and electrifying, making his hands shake uncontrollably._

_"G-go out! Out!" he screamed, his wand starting to slip from his hands._

_"Aguamenti!" Terry shouted, his wand streaming water onto Anthony's wand, quenching the flame. He darted a glance at Madam Pince, who looked absolutely murderous, her face like a tomato. "I don't know what went wrong with you, but I'm taking you to Pomfrey before Pince slits our throats," he hissed, taking a still dazed Anthony by the arm. _

_"Too beautiful..." Anthony whispered throatily, his dark brown eyes wide._

--

Madam Pomfrey sighed. "Don't you know that fire produced by Incendio is hotter than the average flame? I know it warns you in spell books."

Anthony looked down at the floor, thinking about the flame his wand produced. The only fire he would ever get close to would be in the fireplace, and he would definitely stay a fair few feet away from the Shabbat candles. Fire was too dangerous and deadly, too deceiving and betraying.

--

"Incendio! Incendio! Incendio!" Alecto Carrow shrieks, and Anthony is jolted back to the present with the next fire of Incendios. (No pun intended, Anthony thinks bitterly as he screams on the inside.)

"Think the spell is so useful now for your filthy muggle customs, Goldstein? It deserves far better than that! Incendio!"

The Incendios are much harder than when Anthony uses them for lighting the Shabbat candles, obviously because of the different intents and forces. As yet another stream of piercing yellow flames strike Anthony in the back, he knows for sure he was right as a first year. Too deadly – too deceiving – too betraying.

But still so _beautiful..._

As much as Anthony loathes and fears the Incendio fire, he craves it and _wants_ it, and not like the kind of horrified interest one gets when they see something particularly disgusting and awful, but a _want, _a _need..._and Anthony hates it, both his need for it and the oh-so-beautiful flames that _shouldn't _be beautiful, shouldn't be so absolutely bloody hypnotizing and breathtaking when they burn and hurt and scald _so damn much._ It's not right, not that anything has been for the past few months among the punishments and Carrows and the war and the DA's strong revival.

The flames dance over his body, and Anthony wonders if they are performing to the evil tune of Carrow's spirit, a song gone twisted and wrong.


	3. Squeak

_Squeak_

_Survive. _It is the only thought in Anthony's mind right now. Run? Falls under survive. Dodge the Avada Kedavra shot by the tall Death Eater? Falls under survive. Shoot one of the ancient Hebrew curses his dad had sent him by code a few months ago to the Death Eater about to attack his housemate Lisa Turpin? Falls under survive. Stay away from the wall that looks like it's about to fall from the amount of spells that misfired and hit it? Falls under survive.

_Survive_ – a considerably more complex action than Anthony had ever thought.

For now, most Death Eaters are occupied with other people, and Anthony has the time to look around for a Death Eater to duel with.

A couple of light brown hairs from his head fall over his face; Anthony doesn't even take the time to brush them back. During that time one of the enemy could kill him with an Avada Kedavra – or kill him in a slower way, for fun. After seeing what happened to a one of the older sixth year Gryffindors with a simple melting spell, Anthony has vowed never to use that spell again.

No. The neatness of his hair is definitely unimportant at a time like this. Instead, Anthony grips his wand tighter, dark brown eyes looking around quicker than he is sure they have ever done.

"Stupefy!" Anthony hears his housemate Stephen Cornfoot shoot a stunner at a wiry Death Eater while shooting a Jelly-legs Jinx (he has no time to think of something better) at a Death Eater who has just shot down an opponent. Anthony wonders why Stephen shoots such a common spell, but remembers seeing Stephen fighting the same Death Eater minutes ago – minutes being longer than ever during a battle – and can see why he has been brought down to that.

Smoke stings Anthony's eyes and he coughs, glancing behind and seeing the Hufflepuff table burning. A terrified face is underneath, unable to get out in time. Sucking in breath, Anthony sprints away toward the table, swearing as he almost trips over his robes. A stream of green light nearly brushes the hairs of his head and Anthony swallows, hoping it didn't hit anyone else.

Gasps of breath from the Hufflepuff table's direction catch his ears, making him run faster – he needs to get there before a Death Eater does—

"Incendio! Avada Kedavra!" Two jets of light shoot from one wand, green and orange mixing together. Smoke clouds the face of the boy – and now that Anthony looks closer, he can see the long brown hair of a girl – and it nearly obscures his face altogether.

He must run faster than the spells...

The Death Eater definitely knew what she was doing. The two spells mix together and by the time they reach the boy and girl hiding underneath the Hufflepuff table, orange-green light hits both full on in the face, exploding with strong and powerful – impossibly strong and powerful – fire.

It has burned away the skin of their faces before two pairs of eyes – eyes widened with too much fear – roll over, the bodies slumping forward.

Anthony bites down on his tongue in frustration and horror, a shudder running up his spine. He wasn't fast enough – he should have started dueling that Death Eater – he should have at least thought to try to drench the flames with a simple "Aguamenti!"

Too late. No time for regrets, not in the midst of a battle. Anthony runs back to where he was before, pointing his wand at the mouth of a short Death Eater and shouting, "Sheket!" The Death Eater's mouth closes, unable to open (or at least, unable to open for now, Anthony knows).

A slender girl standing off to the side points her wand at the Death Eater Anthony has just silenced and hisses something; slowly, the Death Eater's mouth disappears from view, the process painful from the look in the wizard's eyes. It is only when Anthony starts running towards Stephen (who is still battling the same Death Eater and appearing now to have a tough time of it) that he realizes the girl was Sally-Anne Perks, a Slytherin. Didn't McGonagall lead all the Slytherins out before the battle started? However, Anthony tosses the thought to the back of his mind and thinks no more of it; as long as she's helping their side, Anthony doesn't care.

Hearing the Death Eater Stephen is dueling shout a spell, Anthony runs faster, but then stops and watches in horror as Stephen's ears get bigger and move to the top of his head, his eyes turn smaller as they move to the sides of his head, as he shrinks and a steadily elongating stub appears in his backside...

The transformation takes only a few moments, but Anthony sees it as if going in slow motion, each detail of the change taking an impossibly long time and imprinting itself in his mind.

Stephen Cornfoot has turned into a mouse.

Anthony can do nothing but gape and watch the mouse – Stephen – look up with a dazed look in its eyes, still not digesting that he is now a mouse. Before he can fully adjust to it and scurry away, however, the Death Eater steps forward and rubs his heel into Stephen's – the mouse's – head, pushing and pushing into it, getting it flatter and flatter...

He cannot watch anymore. Turning away, Anthony looks for someone to help or a Death Eater to duel. He sees a tall, balding redheaded man who looks like he could be Ron Weasley's father dueling with a Death Eater, another coming up behind him. Running to the three, Anthony tries to get the thought of the Death Eater stepping on Stephen to death.

But when he is still a few feet away, Anthony hears a weak, pathetic squeak, and is unable to look back. He sees Stephen the mouse twitching just the tiniest bit, looking pathetic and tortured. The Death Eater has gone and Anthony would love to go and find him and kill him, but he can't find him.

Stephen's body writhes. One more strangled, sickening squeak emits from his mouth, and then he stills, a crippled, wrecked mouse body splayed out on the floor.

That last squeak replays itself in Anthony's mind over and over. He knows he will never be able to hear any kind of squeak without shuddering and hearing that one again.

--

_Terry wanted Anthony to come with him and his four year old son, Tyler, to Magical Menagerie to buy Tyler a pet, and Anthony doesn't know why. Perhaps he thinks that spending some time with Tyler will make him want to start dating (Terry had once said it would be nice to have kids the same age to be friends just like their parents) though he knows very well Anthony still wants to stay unmarried. Either way, Anthony is there with Terry and Tyler (he can't resist smiling at the alliteration which much of the wizarding world is so fond of) in the Magical Menagerie. Anthony has bet that though he'll start off somewhere else, he'll eventually end up wanting a dog, to which Terry thinks his wife would go mad from. _

_"Look at the mouses, Daddy!"_

_Anthony gulps and takes a deep breath. Terry follows his son, who is on his tiptoes, and says, "Mice, Tyler, mice."_

_Anthony walks a little too quickly over to the mice frolicking in the wheels and the little buildings and on the ground._

_"Look, Daddy, this one's squeaking!"_

_Anthony swallows again._

_--_

_Terry is the one who has to explain to the Magical Menagerie worker why his friend has vomited all over the floor._

_

* * *

_

'Sheket' is Hebrew for 'silence,' 'shut up,' 'be quiet,' etc. I probably spelled it in English wrong.


	4. Reunion

_Reunion_

It was the kind of thing you forgot about after a couple years despite thinking a lot about it after finished your seventh (or, in the case of many in Anthony's year, "eighth") year at Hogwarts. Anthony now knew this after receiving the letter and seeing the Hogwarts crest on it before even opening it. He glanced at the spotted owl, feeling a mix of nostalgia and déjà vu; he didn't know the last time he'd seen a Hogwarts owl, and, for that matter, an envelope bearing the Hogwarts crest.

Anthony ran a hand through his light brown hair and sat down in one of the chairs by the kitchen table, tearing open the envelope. He saw exactly what he expected, and he wasn't sure whether he was supposed to smile or cry:

_Dear Anthony Goldstein,_

_We are pleased to invite you to your first Hogwarts reunion with the wizards and witches who were in your year, 1997/98, ten years after your graduation. Unlike other reunions, this reunion takes place ten years after the optional "eighth" year (1998/99) instead of the ordinary seventh, due to the nature of what took place during the ordinary seventh year. The Hogwarts reunion is designed for former students and friends to meet again and talk, marveling about how far you have gone in your lives in the ten years you have been away. It is encouraged to keep a friendly outlook and not let petty school grudges overrule common courtesy and friendliness. _

_The reunion will take place June 15, 2009 and will last from five o'clock PM to nine-thirty. It is not compulsory to come to the reunion or stay for all of it, but it is highly encouraged that you do. Dinner will be served at six-thirty. We hope to see you there._

_Sincerely,_

_Professor McGonagall, Headmistress of Hogwarts School_

Seven people wouldn't be alive to come. Nine would be crippled and permanently injured. All would have many scars, physical and mental.

Anthony stared at the fancy lettering, the flourish of McGonagall's signature, the encouragement to come. "Well, I always knew I wouldn't be able to refuse," he muttered. "Guess I'll go and see if Terry's gotten it yet, or maybe Michael or even Kevin, though I haven't talked to him in years..." He left the letter on the table, glancing once more at the words, and apparated with a small pop! out of his flat.

--

"Millicent Bulstrode," Anthony said. "Mandy Brocklehurst. Justin Finch-Fletchley. Vincent Crabbe. Megan Jones. Jenna Matthews. Stephen – Stephen Cornfoot."

Terry nodded. "That doesn't mean it's not a real reunion, though."

Anthony scowled. "You had a crush on Mandy in third year. She was best friends with Lisa."

Terry blushed. "That was stupid."

"Doesn't matter. We always wondered if Justin's hair would spring back into place if you pulled it. Apparently he'd grown up with people doing that to him, even though it didn't. He never really complained though. He was always really polite."

"My hair springs back into place when you pull it."

"It's different. Michael said he saw Millicent comforting a first year about Snape once, even though she was a Slytherin."

"Everyone always wondered if she should really have been in that house."

"You didn't. You also always said Cra – Vincent was more than a grunt. You said his voice was really soft even though he was so big and heavyset."

"It was."

"No one'll ever hear it now. Megan always studied for her tests and never thought of procrastinating on essays and homework."

"She was pretty nosy."

"Yeah, that too. Kevin liked to call Steph—Stephen 'that corn boy.' We all looked as he took off his socks and shoes just out of curiosity to see what his feet were like.

"They weren't made of corn."

"Yes. It was disappointing. No one ever really noticed Jenna, and we always wondered why she was in Gryffindor."

"We found out why at the end."

Anthony squinted, eyebrows scrunched together. "Yeah. We did."

Terry nodded, waiting for Anthony to say something else.

"We won't see any of them at the reunion," he hissed through his teeth, elbows perched on Terry's kitchen table. "They won't get to reunite."

"Well – they're, uh, dead."

"You and Mandy won't get to laugh about that stupid crush you had," Anthony said, digging his elbow into the table. "I won't be able to see how soft Crabbe's voice really was, and if he'll still stick to Malfoy like glue. We won't be able to see how sweet Bulstrode really was. We won't be able to hear how far Megan got with her diligence, of if she's still so nosy. No one'll be able to pull one of Justin's curls and get him annoyed by watching it not spring back into place like expected. We won't be able to really meet Jenna and know for sure why she was a Gryffindor." He paused, and hesitated. "We won't be able to talk to Stephen or see if he had turned his feet into corn just to stop us from annoying him about that and making him say 'bugger off' so much he vowed never to say it again."

Terry nodded. "If you're so sad about all this, why are you going?"

Anthony stared off into space. "Seven died. Thirty-four survived. And that makes all the difference."

--

It was uncomfortable, being back in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. The last time Anthony had been there was ten years ago, having gone to repeat his seventh year. Much of it was rebuilt, having been damaged during the Battle of Hogwarts. Anthony remembered helping the rebuilding, not liking the feeling of completely replacing parts of the thousand-year-old castle.

The four tables weren't distinguished as Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw; houses weren't supposed to matter now. But they still did; everyone knew they still did.

"Terry! Anthony!"

Anthony saw Terry flinch as Michael walked toward them. He couldn't run very well, what with having only one leg.

"I didn't think you'd be coming," Michael said to Anthony. "I wasn't sure you'd like the absences. Or the injuries."

"I can bear it," Anthony murmured. "We didn't come too early or late or anything, did we?"

Michael shrugged and shook his head. "Nah. We're here, Ernie's here—he always liked being on time, didn't he? Su, Hannah, Neville, few others...Lot of the Slytherins aren't here yet, along with a few others."

A tall man with dark brown hair entered the Great Hall, and Michael shouted, "Kevin! Over here!"

Anthony grimaced slightly; all this still felt awkward. "Very eager, aren't you, Michael."

He grinned. "I don't know why you're so gloomy. I think it's pretty nice to see all these people again."

Kevin Entwhistle walked over to them, and Anthony experienced, as he always did with Kevin, the feeling that he was too short. "They were behind me," Kevin said with a slightly sour look.

"Who's they?" Terry asked.

"You know. Harry Potter. Ron Weasley. Hermione Granger. Or Hermione Weasley, I could say."

Terry grinned. "We don't need a reunion to know how they're doing in life. Wizarding world loves them."

"'Course," Kevin muttered. "It's been eleven years and they're still getting the publicity, no matter how much they try to avoid it."

Anthony shrugged. "Potter just became head of the Auror Department two years ago. Weasley was an Auror and then went to help out his brother in Weasley Wizard Wheezes and got them all over the world, or something. And Granger—Weasley—Granger-Weasley—worked with house elves, or something, and now she's high up in Law Enforcement. Not to mention their kids. The wizarding world has tons to write about."

"Of course you'd know," Kevin said. "You're a journalist or something, now, right?"

Nodding, Anthony said, " Yeah. 'S okay." His thoughts flashed to the ever unfinished book of musings turned to poetry, and said, "Kevin, aren't you married now? I heard it was to someone in our year."

Kevin looked over his shoulder. "Pansy wanted to meet up with her fellow Slytherins."

Michael perked up. "Thefuck, Kevin? You married _Pansy Parkinson_?"

Looking defensive, Kevin said, "Yeah, so? You don't know her like I do. I've been married to her for a few years now – since I was twenty-five."

Not being one to know much about married life, Anthony edged away, murmuring to Terry, "Maybe we should leave them to talk for a few minutes."

"Yeah. Hey, isn't that Morag? She was in Ravenclaw like us. Hey, Morag—"

"Don't bother," Anthony interrupted, jaw tightened. "Morag's deaf now."

Terry stared at Morag, who looked back with narrowed blue eyes. "Er," said Terry. "Okay. I don't think she really wants to interact with anyone anyway, considering that look she just gave me."

Anthony shrugged, giving one last glance at the former housemate, who gazed back, dark brow furrowed in what seemed to be suspicion. "Guess she hasn't been out much since the Battle of Hogwarts or something," he said, uneasiness tugging at his chest.

Terry nodded, looked around, and said, "Hey, why don't we talk to Seamus? He's over there. With one of the girls who used to be in Slytherin, though. Greengrass, I think."

Anthony looked at Morag again. "You go. There's someone I want to talk to."

"Sure. I'll save you a spot when we have dinner."

Anthony watched Terry walk over to Seamus and Greengrass, an amiable smile on his dark face.

Biting his lip, Anthony walked over to Morag MacDougal, who was leaning against a wall and watching the rest of her former year-mates interact with each other.

Waving his wand, two words streamed out of the tip, waving gently in the air. _Hi, Morag._

Morag snorted, so quietly Anthony could barely hear it; probably because she couldn't hear herself and couldn't control how loud or quiet she made any sounds, he guessed.

She barely twitched her wand and black, easy-to-see words flew out and settled into the air. _Having a grand old time, are you, Anthony? Meeting all your old classmates and finding out what they got up to in life?_

Anthony found himself beginning to open his mouth to answer, but he remembered in time and closed it. _No, actually. I didn't really want to come._

Morag glared. _At least you _can, said the words streaming out of her wand, a bit spiky as if matching her expression and showing what would have been her tone of voice. _Seven people can't, and nine bear more than just scars. _

Anthony didn't stare.

_Yeah. Like me. _

An awkward pause followed as Anthony didn't stream out anymore words from his wand in response. Finally, he waved it and the words said, _So...what are you doing in life now, Morag?_

Here Morag smirked. _Big muggle bookshop,_ she said_. No one knows me, no one's thinking of me as one of the war heroes, and all I need to do is work as a cashier, shelve books, and skim them too. Yes, I am a pureblood and you're not remembering wrong. Doesn't mean I'm completely horrible at acting like a muggle. _

_So – so you've just cut yourself off from the wizarding world completely?_

_You know a few others did after the war, just not forever like it seems I am. And not_ completely_. I perform spells in my flat. I still get a few newspapers. I know the current events in the magical world. I know what everyone in our year's doing in life. You're working for a magazine now, writing book and music reviews and sometimes giving the odd article. I've read some of your reviews. Terry went into Charms Development. Neville Longbottom's Herbology Professor here at Hogwarts. Padma's a Healer..._

Anthony sighed. _Okay. I get it. But...don't you miss being..._fully_ integrated into the wizarding world?_

Morag shrugged. _Maybe if I didn't get people coming up to me with their kids saying, "Look, dear, here's a war hero! She survived the Battle of Hogwarts and helped defeat that evil Voldemort!" if my lip reading is right. And the kid looks all dumbfounded and then they both wait for me to say something back, and then they finally realize I didn't get out of there only with a few trendy scars, but that I actually _suffered_ from it. They all think it was just some romantic story now, even though only eleven years have passed since then._

Anthony nodded. _They don't. Even just in our year, seven people died. Nine survived but didn't only receive scars. And everybody who walked out alive has more than physical wounds. _

_I've read about muggle wars from books in the muggle bookshop, _Morag said. _The same problem's happened to them, but they still have the truth written down in those books, and stories about survivors, and still a lot of people know it was _war, _and not a story that happened years ago so what does it matter now? We don't have it written down except in dry history books, and it's not like anyone reads those and _remembers.

Anthony's eyes widened. _Maybe we _should. _We could make one. We—_

"Hey, Anthony! Why're you still over there talking to Morag? We need to reunite with other people too, you know!" Michael shouted from a few feet away, sitting at a table and apparently talking with Seamus Finnigan and Ernie Macmillan.

"Yeah, I guess." Anthony fumbled in his pocket for a pen and a slip of paper (objects that somehow always found their way into his clothes) and he wrote down the address of his flat, handing to to Morag. She nodded and smiled, slipping it into a pocket.

_See you later,_ he said, and walked away, going over to Michael.

--

Anthony opened the door of his muggle flat, running his fingers on the wall to find the light switch. Feeling a bump on the wall he flicked the switch up and shut the door, sinking into the nearest chair.

He had just come back from a Hogwarts reunion. He had just reunited with thirty-three people, because seven couldn't be reunited with.

It wasn't a true reunion, he told himself fervently, getting up and walking out of the kitchen. If you couldn't reunite with all of your classmates, it wasn't a true reunion.

But his thoughts kept on racing back to his short conversation with Morag MacDougal, one of the nine who had walked out of the Battle of Hogwarts with more than scars.

Reunion wasn't about seeing everybody who had been in your year once again. It was about remembering. Anthony had remembered, and for him that was good enough.

--

Yay for horrible endings. 8D

-blush- Sorry; I know I've been forgetting to put the first ten up one per day. I've been occupied, mostly with adjusting to a back brace. I kind of forgot about this fic. D8


	5. Sunset

_Sunset_

_i._

"That was a pretty sunset today, wasn't it?"

Anthony's head shoots straight up as he hears Padma's remark to Lisa. Now he knows the source of that strange sense as if he was forgetting something on that Friday, something important. _He forgot to light the candles. _He shouldn't be feeling so angry with himself—after all, missing them one Shabbat isn't that bad, right? Right?

Wrong. Yeah, Anthony's not an orthodox or anything, but not lighting the candles as the sun sets is too wrong, much too wrong.

"What is it, Anthony?" Lisa asks, noticing how Anthony is pushing himself out of his chair and beginning to rush to his dormitory.

"I forgot to light the candles," he mutters. "For Shabbat. I forgot to light the candles—"

She blinks, brushing a stray blonde hair off her face. "Well, that's not that horrible, right?" she says. "It's only some part of Muggle religion."

Anthony grinds his teeth, despising her pureblood ignorance, wanting to tell her how she could never possibly understand and how she just tosses it aside—but he keeps silent, continuing his way to his dormitory to get two candles.

And as he begins the first prayer (_"Baruch atah adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam..."_), he thinks, _Better late than never, right?_

But he still knows the true answer.

_Wrong._

_ii._

The sunset's especially pretty, Anthony thinks, a blaze of color – pinks, oranges, reds – splashed onto the sky with long, shadowed clouds that blend in and nearly become part of the color themselves. He watches it from outside the castle, leaning against a huge, ancient tree that casts his face in shadow. It's better, purer, cleaner than any sunset Anthony saw while looking out the windows of the Ravenclaw common room during the school year.

With the sunset in the sky comes the sunset of the many lives lost in the battle along with it, sinking down with the sun and disappearing for good when the last bright sliver of deep orange-yellow disappears, except in memories.

Certain familiar faces that should still be smiling, laughing, shouting, crying fade away along with that day's sun, and Anthony suddenly feels the sunset's purity to overwhelming.

He heads back into Hogwarts, up to Ravenclaw Tower, and doesn't look out the window again, his expression pained and melancholy when Su Li comments on the unusually pretty sunset outside.

--

The two oneshot/drabbles aren't meant to be related to each other; they just both come from the same prompt. Originally the first was going to tie into the second, having the same theme (forgetting to light the candles) when I looked at a calendar of May 1998 and mistakenly thought that Friday was the second; the second actually took place on a Saturday.


	6. Whitewash

_Whitewash_

Even in a room covered with whitewash, all Anthony can see in front of him is blood red.

--

(He is the one who drains that shop's supply of it.

It beckons him, you see, in a whispery lullaby-voice, away from dark and splatters and scars and eyes-closed-that-will-never-open, from old stone walls dripping with blood that dries into brown clots on the floor.

_Whitewash,_ the buckets breathe, _white-white-whitewash._)


	7. Forget

_Forget_

How do you fear memory?

Anthony Goldstein knows the answer.

There are some days at night when he stares at the ceiling, worried that the next morning there will be no place in his mind for something important: friends, Hogwarts, family, even the most basic things like maths and reading writing.

He pulls all-nighters too often, just like he goes through days with baggy eyes lurking with shadows, and lays in the middle of the night hot and sweaty and wide-eyed, and strolls (though that's too happy of a word) around cemeteries far too often.

Anthony Goldstein will not forget.

_(You can remember anything, he whispers in a dry voice to himself. Anything.)_

Anthony Goldstein will not forget.

_(Pensieves can be destroyed, he murmurs to himself, his voice cracking, forgetting—oh, the irony—that so can heads.)_

Anthony Goldstein will not forget.

_(Nothing can ensure memory, he scribbles on paper, letting thoughts run out of his quill. Not mice, not repairs, not blood, not letters and voices and scars and visits to places that shouldn't always be visited.)_

Anthony Goldstein will not forget.

_(Maybe you should forget, he whispers to himself in a raspy voice. Maybe you should just let it all fall away and wonder why you're visiting cemeteries.)_

Anthony Goldstein will not forget.

_(I won't, he screams, I won'tIwon'tIwon't.)_

How do you fear memory?

_(Anthony Goldstein knows the answer.)_

--

I don't like this one much. Mm.


	8. Hopeless

_Hopeless_

It's kind of hard during wartime, Anthony reflects sometimes, to have the strength to feel anything besides hopelessness.

Some people could do it: Neville Longbottom, for one, with his oh-so-Gryffindor spirit, a quality Anthony never thought he'd be jealous of.

—Anthony was sorted into Ravenclaw for a reason.

--

(It's pretty simple, actually. Ravenclaw ≠ Gryffindor. Sometimes, Anthony hates equations for the same he reason he sometimes loves them: their simplicity, their short, blunt truth.

No one likes short, blunt truth during wartime.)

--

Hopelessness doesn't seem to weigh down the Gryffindors. Either they are just that foolish (but Anthony isn't a Slytherin, and doubts all Gryffindors, no matter what, are foolish and stupid), or they are very good at keeping up appearances.

Either way, Anthony wants to be a Gryffindor.

(Book smarts are hopeless during a war; Gryffindor bravery isn't.)


	9. Ribbon

_Ribbon_

Really, Anthony can't help noticing little, forgettable details, even during a time when imagination and artist observation aren't so important compared to, you know, survival.

Either way, Anthony can't help noticing how well the pretty, bright yellow ribbon in Hannah Abbott's hair complements her so nicely. Anthony kind of likes the yellow: it reminds him of bright sunshiney days that seem to have disappeared from Hogwarts lately, and of the happiness that has similarly been sucked out by the Carrows. He hates the yellow ribbon for the same exact reasons, but he tries to focus more on the good aspects of those reminders rather than the bad ones.

(However, Anthony also notes the yellow ribbon clashes terribly with Hannah's face, which isn't so bright and happy.)


	10. Snake

_Snake_

One day, Anthony kills a snake.

It's not a real snake, of course—it's the Slytherin insignia, that emblem, the one that appears on all Slytherin robes and banners and the like, but, at the time, it feels just the same as a snake that lives and breathes and eats.

And kills.

He just sees it while he's walking along a corridor to the Ravenclaw common room, unoccupied enough to be occupied by the wooden floors he's walking on, and what's littering them. There's various types of quills of course, dropped by people and fallen from book-bags; maybe a torn piece of parchment here and there, or an ink spill that has long since dried and not been cleaned by Filch yet.

This time, when a flash of color flies before Anthony's eyes as he's hurrying down the corridor, it's not a white or a gray or a creamy color—it's green.

Obviously, that's what gives Anthony pause; as far as he knew, green quills and parchments and inks have never existed.

Green emblems have, though: green emblems on Slytherin robes that sometimes loosen and tear and eventually fall off. And that is what the green is: a small Slytherin snake against a smaller backdrop of the fen that Salazar Slytherin hailed from, sporting the green and silver colors of Slytherin, the green and silver colors that look so ugly every day on the Carrows and Snape and sometimes the Slytherins themselves—the green and silver colors of the house Volde-fucking-mort came from—just that damn _green and silver_—

It is not his fault, Anthony tries to reason later, that he saw that Slytherin snake on the insiginia as Nagini, a living and breathing and killing snake that would do well as not being able to do any of those three, and those awful green and silver colors as everything Voldemort and his army of former-Slytherins stood for.

It is not his fault, Anthony persists, that right then and there and he slams his shoe onto that damn emblem, rubbing his heel into the fraying snake, kicking it around and then bending over to tear it apart with his own hands when it only gets a little more frayed and torn from his shoes. Ripping the fabric apart with his own hands is much more satisfying than, say, exploding the insignia with a wand; this way he can _feel_ that filthy snake getting ripped and destroyed by his very own fingers and not far away with a wand between his hands and that fucking evil snake; this way he can _tear_ and_ rip_ and _hack_ and_ stab _and_ slash_ and_ shred _and_ gash_ that horrible, leering snake to little pieces and _know_ he really destroyed that vile, that vicious, that _wrong_ snake.

Eventually little green and silver pieces of fabric—very small, torn up pieces—float to the ground, littering the wood floor of the corridor as Anthony pants, his mouth in a grimace and his eyes still narrowed at the pieces of the emblem on the floor.

"That was certainly very civilized of you."

Anthony whips around, searching for the person that quiet voice came from. Finally he sees a dark-haired boy in the shadows, a green and silver scarf wrapped around his neck. The Slytherin's not alone; he's accompanied by a girl whose dark eyes pierce Anthony.

"Of course," says Anthony in the same quiet tone. He walks off, leaving the two Slytherins (they stare after him, wide eyes burning into his back) and the fragments of the emblem, for all the world a real live—well, not live any more—serpent.

One day, Anthony kills a snake.


End file.
